


Lost and Found

by banditchika, MirrorMystic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crisis of Faith, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Set between The Clone Wars and Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-02-01 07:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21442444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditchika/pseuds/banditchika, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: She doesn’t belong here. She can feel it in her core. Deep down, she wonders if she really belongs anywhere. She’d thought about it, earlier, with Ahsoka’s hand in hers.It wasn’t home. But it was close. Closer than a lot of places.---Visions of a Rebellion, a reunion, and a reason to keep fighting.
Relationships: Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 21
Kudos: 172





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> _We went shouting sideways at one another along the road._  
_It was useless. The spaces between us got hard_  
_They are empty spaces, and yet they are solid, and black and grievous_  
_As gaps between the teeth of an old woman you knew years ago._  
\- Anne Carson, “Apostle Town”

~*~  
  
They had chased her across two planets now.   
  
A combination of luck, skill, and an insistent _ go run flee _ pulsing through the Force has kept Ahsoka’s head firmly attached to her shoulders so far, but the Inquisitorius is relentless.   
  
Having a hot meal in a cantina? Bam, Inquisitor kicking down the doors-- Inquisitor sprawled on the floor, Purge Troopers tripping over him, fumbling for their blasters, and Ahsoka, forced to eat and run for the third time in a month. And if it’s not them, it’s bounty hunters, or pirates, or worst of all, _ slavers.  
  
_ She’d been careful not to let them catch her going anywhere important, but there was nowhere she could go where they wouldn’t eventually sniff her out, so she’d thought, _ kriff it, _ and flew straight to Coruscant. If she was going to be dogged no matter where she went, she might as well send a message: “I’m better than the very best you can throw at me.”   
  
It had been a plan Anakin would have been proud of. It almost worked, too.   
  
Then the Force-- the very same Force that saved her from droids, bounty hunters, pirates, old friends and enemies and the order that killed everyone Ahsoka ever cared about-- saw fit to send her careening into a dead end alley, with no way out besides the way she came...  
  
…Right into the arms of the hooded figures flooding the alley, neon lights glinting off their eyeless masks.  
  
_ Thanks, _ Ahsoka thinks venomously at the Force, sacred lifeblood of the universe. _ Thanks a lot, really.  
_  
Ahsoka stops counting bodies after five. The Inquisitors don't deign to speak as they ignite their sabers--or whatever that dual-bladed spinny thing is supposed to be. If they're not bothering with banter, Ahsoka won't either. It’s almost gratifying to know that she’s annoyed them as much as they’ve annoyed her.   
  
For a moment, no one moves. Ahsoka catches her reflection on the blank, gleaming plate of the lead Inquisitor's helm and bares her fangs.   
  
The alley erupts into chaos.   
  
Motion. Heat. Ahsoka becomes the pure white eye of a blazing red hurricane. Ahsoka ducks and weaves around flashes of red lightning, some figurative, some literal. The air fills with the whirring chop of lightsabers spinning like buzzsaws, but Ahsoka isn’t intimidated. She darts through the chaotic melee with grace and poise, a far cry from the clumsy brutes arrayed against her, shoving past one another to land the prestigious killing blow, unable to press their advantage of numbers.  
  
And what numbers! There must have been a dozen Inquisitors packed into the gritty side street. Ahsoka wonders-- in the midst of darting aside sloppy slashes and swatting overly-telegraphed blows aside-- if they had simply joined forces as more and more of them picked up her trail, or if the Empire had sent so many after her from the very beginning. This many Inquisitors on the same planet, much less the same city, is astounding overkill. Ahsoka’s almost flattered.  
  
Filthy red light flashes through the air and cracks against Ahsoka’s blades. She shoves them back with a thought, feeling the Inquisitors’ frustration rippling through the air.  
  
The Inquisitorius seemed to think a red lightsaber and a nice hat were all it took to scare any fledgling Force-sensitives into submission.  
  
They must not be used to fighting a Jedi worthy of the name.  
  
But even if they were amateurs by comparison, there were a lot of them. And all it took was one slip, one break in Ahsoka’s guard…  
  
She sees the feint. Two low, one high-- two to sweep her legs, the third to catch her when she jumps. She curls her legs beneath her, lets the Force flow down from her core into the soles of her boots, and leaps over all three…  
  
...only to see the waiting line of a half dozen hands, stretched, palm-out, towards her.  
  
The coordinated Push hits her like a freighter lighting its drives. It snatches her out of mid-air and hurls her down the length of the alley. Ahsoka wheezes as she’s smashed against the far wall, the breath forced from her lungs, her lightsabers clattering to the pavement. She crumples to her knees, hugging herself, a spiderweb of cracks spreading across the duraplast wall above.  
  
Ahsoka gasps, teary-eyed, willing some air back into her lungs. Her insides feel like jelly. Her vision blurs and shifts. She sees the shadows of the Inquisitors looming above her, closing in like wolves. One of them barks an order into his helmet mic, and the others stand aside. He strides forward to the head of the pack. He’s been hunting her the longest. This is his kill.  
  
Ahsoka swears she hears him lick his lips behind the mask. He ignites his lightsaber. It begins to spin--  
  
A blaster clicks.   
  
The Inquisitor whirls and brings his saber up too late to deflect the shot that cracks against his arm. His lightsaber falls from numb fingers, still spinning, cutting glowing gouges in the pavement. Ahsoka twists the Force in her fist and dashes him against the wall.  
  
A hail of acid yellow bolts cascades down the alley, forcing the Inquisitors on the defensive. Their opponent stands at the entrance of the alleyway, casting a shadow that stretches narrow from their feet to titanic against the filthy alley wall. Ahsoka sees the shape of a hood and cloak, and when their blaster barks in their hands she catches the briefest glimpse of pale skin and a narrow, snarling mouth.   
  
A shiver runs through her. She feels it from the tips of her montrals all the way down to the pit of her gut. Ahsoka _ knows _ this stranger, but who--  
  
She almost pays with her nose for her distraction. The Inquisitor whose helm she shattered against the alley wall leaps to his feet and lashes out with his spinning sabers, blood drooling from the cracks in his helm. Ahsoka catches a blade with her main saber and lets the motion of it drag the Inquisitor within thrusting range of her shoto.   
  
Another Inquisitor lunges, but a shot cracks against their helmet. A glancing blow, but it still distracts them long enough for Ahsoka to whirl and turn her thrust into a slash, searing through their saber arm. The Inquisitor falls. The other, with his spinning blades, lets out a ragged cry and pounces.   
  
Blaster fire harmonizes with the hum and crash of colliding sabers, a frantic, dissonant symphony. Something strange is at work here-- even if it weren’t for the horrible, lurching knot of familiarity sitting in her gut, the stranger’s shooting would have tipped Ahsoka off eventually. Blasters are great for crowd control. Blasters are great against people who couldn’t deflect them as easily as one might shoo an annoying insect.   
  
Blasters should not be anywhere near effective in a fight consisting entirely of Force-users.   
  
But this stranger’s shots are landing. Not lethally and not often, but the stranger is proving to be capable of more than just cover fire, and that-- that alone would be worth noticing.   
  
Unfortunately, it seems the Inquisitors have finally picked up on it.   
  
In frustration at being distracted from their quarry, the rear ranks of Inquisitors adjust their grip on their lightsabers and tighten their deflections. When the hooded gunner looses their next volley, the bright yellow bolts are angled right back where they came from.  
  
The stranger shifts their weight, darting away from their deflected fire with a speed and efficiency of movement that gives Ahsoka pause. If Ahsoka had had any doubt this was no ordinary concerned bystander, it’s long gone.  
  
An Inquisitor barks a garbled order over their helmet radio. Down the street, a squad of Purge Troopers rounds the corner, bringing their rifles up to aim.  
  
A second blaster appears in the stranger’s off-hand, as if conjured out of nothing. They gun down the troopers barreling down the street with clinical efficiency and absurd precision, single shots, quick, clean. They don’t even bother turning to look. And when the last trooper falls, the stranger turns their attention back on the alley, toggling from single-shot to full-auto with a click.  
  
A storm of searing yellow bolts stitches its way up the side of the neighboring complex. A creaking old fire escape is sheared from the wall. The Inquisitors cry out in alarm as the aging structure crashes down on their heads in a heap of sparking metal.  
  
Ahsoka channels the Force down into her feet and propels herself over the wreckage and the rising dust cloud, joining the stranger on the street. Already, she can hear the buzzing of spinning lightsabers scything through metal, the first Inquisitors emerging from the debris. In an instant, the stranger has their twin blasters up and firing.  
  
The stranger’s pushed their luck too far. The Inquisitor spins their ring blade, and this time, the storm of deflected bolts makes contact. An arm. A hand. The stranger cries out as a bolt clips their hood and the impact throws them to the ground.  
  
That voice. Ahsoka _ knows _ that voice--  
  
A flash of red streaks past her face and stops just shy of carving into her chest. Ahsoka catches the blade on her own, grits her teeth, and slices her opponent open with a tight, scissoring slash. As the Inquisitor crumples, she sees two of his compatriots already rushing forward to take his place, the others already picking themselves off the ground.  
  
Ahsoka snarls, hunkering down against the renewed assault. The Inquisitors are finally getting serious-- or maybe she’s the one getting sloppy. Distracted. She’s distracted-- but she can’t get that voice out of her head.  
  
She senses the Inquisitor trying to sneak up on her from behind. She senses him, but she can’t stop him-- her lightsabers are locked against the two in front of her. Ahsoka grits her teeth.  
  
She cries out, takes a pair of glancing cuts along her bracers as she punches her blades across two throats. She feels something. A tug at her waist. Behind her. She whirls around, bringing her lightsabers up to defend. Too slow, too slow--  
  
And she sees the Inquisitor go stiff as a board, a blade of acid yellow plasma punching through his spine and coming out through his chest.  
  
The stranger swipes the blade aside, and the man crumples. The woman-- and with her cloak pulled aside and her tunic hugging her curves, her womanhood is impossible for Ahsoka to ignore-- raises the yellow shoto in her uninjured hand, pulling her hood back up onto her head.  
  
Ahsoka blinks, her thoughts spinning. The shoto Anakin had given her years ago. Her empty belt pouch. The sensation of the Force pulling something from her belt.  
  
And those eyes. Though the woman tries to hide them under her hood, the yellow glow of her borrowed shoto catches her ocean-blue eyes, illuminating the faded arch of diamond tattoos across her nose.  
  
Ahsoka gasps.  
  
“Barriss?”  
  
Ahsoka’s senses flare in warning and she whirls around, catching an Inquisitor’s blade on her twin lightsabers. The Inquisitors descend upon them, snapping and snarling like wolves. Ahsoka stands her ground like a cliff against the sea, blocking strikes from every angle, swatting aside incoming attacks, letting her foes overreach, pull themselves off balance. And in her shadow, Barriss prowls, Ahsoka’s yellow shoto like a dagger of light in her hands. Barriss circles around like a jungle cat, hunting for weaknesses, plunging her shoto into every broken guard.  
  
The next few minutes feel like hours. Finally, the last member of the hunting party lies broken on the pavement, his helmet radio crackling. Barriss stabs him in the throat without batting an eye.  
  
Barriss deactivates the shoto and shifts it into her injured hand with a wince. One of her blasters, she scoops up from the sidewalk where she’d dropped it. The other, sparking from a ruptured power cell, she leaves where it fell.  
  
She turns to find Ahsoka staring, so intently she squirms and looks away. It takes Ahsoka a long moment to deactivate her lightsabers and put them away.  
  
Ahsoka exhales.  
  
It’s been years. What is she supposed to say?  
  
That’s when Ahsoka hears it-- the crackling of radio chatter. Armored boots hustling their way.  
  
“Where’s your ship?” Barriss asks-- the first words she’s said to Ahsoka in over a decade.  
  
“Why, you don’t think we can take ‘em?” Ahsoka asks dryly, with a daredevil grin.  
  
Barriss’ lips curl into something almost like a smile. Ahsoka feels a flicker of… something in her chest. Something old, and bittersweet.  
  
It doesn’t last. The blurts of helmet comms and tromping boots get ever closer.  
  
“Your ship,” Barriss echoes, rather more urgently.  
  
“...Right,” Ahsoka mutters. “Follow me.”  
  
~*~  
  
No port is truly safe for the Jedi, anymore. The safest place to be is on the move.  
  
Ahsoka deftly maneuvers her unmarked shuttle out of Coruscanti airspace, under the shadow of Imperial Star Destroyers looming above the planet. She slots in her encrypted data tile, taps a button, and lets the navicomputer begin plotting a route. Soon, the shuttle’s interior is bathed in the eerie twilight blue of hyperspace.  
  
Ahsoka leans over the pilot’s console, thoughts spinning, her arms braced on the counter. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slow.

The second the autopilot light flickers to life, Ahsoka whirls and lunges for Barriss.   
  
Barriss doesn’t struggle as Ahsoka shoves her against the shuttle wall. The hood falls from her head. The blaster Ahsoka pulls from her holster and tosses aside-- not that it would stop Barriss if she were _really_ determined. Unfazed by this rough welcome, Barriss freely offers Ahsoka the shoto with her injured hand. Ahsoka scowls and snatches it away.   
  
Now that Ahsoka has the time to really study her, Barriss looks… tired. Dark circles ring her eyes, purple bruises against the ash of her skin. The corners of her mouth droop like Barriss can’t find the energy to commit to either a smile or a snarl. Even her tattoos are faded. Time will do that, Ahsoka knows, but on Barriss the effect is so dramatic that if Ahsoka crossed the room right now and took a look, she might mistake the smear of color across the bridge of Barriss’ nose for machine grease, even with a Togruta’s eyesight. The diamonds across her cheeks almost look like freckles, jarringly youthful against her drawn cheekbones and haunted eyes.  
  
“Ahsoka," Barriss says mildly, as though they were still Padawans passing one another in the temple corridors. A smear of blood tracks down her forehead.   
  
"Barriss." Ahsoka's tongue is heavy in her mouth. The absurdity of their situation is beginning to sink in. _ Hi Barriss. Long time no see. Thanks for saving my life! You look great for a fugitive, by the way. Do you feel bad about trying to kill and frame me? _ “Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”   
  
"It’s a long story.” Barriss glances at her from beneath her long, dark lashes, deceptively demure. She’d looked at Ahsoka the same way when they first met on Geonosis, two Padawans with no clue of the tragedy they were about to play witness to. That, more than anything, is what drags a growl up from Ahsoka’s chest.  
  
“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not exactly going anywhere.”  
  
Barriss glances at the pilot’s console, a half-smile on her lips. “Aren’t we?”  
  
There’s just something about that smile that really gets under her skin. Ahsoka huffs, rolls her eyes. “Oh, so now you’re an expert on encrypted Alliance navcodes?”  
  
A strange shadow flits through Barriss’ eyes. “No,” she says, but the game is gone from her voice. “Give me a few minutes to study them, though, and I will be.”  
  
“Is that a threat?”  
  
“I won’t deny I know people who would pay good money for any decrypted Alliance information.” Ahsoka’s grip tightens. Barriss winces and closes her eyes. “But no. I have no interest in the Alliance’s affairs.”   
  
“Oh, good,” Ahsoka snipes. Ahsoka had always felt gangly next to Barriss. Even now when she towers head, shoulders, and montrals over her, Barriss’ bearing still has a way of making Ahsoka feel clumsy and graceless. Ahsoka is in the right, she knows she is, but she can’t help but feel as though she’s making a big mess of it all anyway. “I’d hate to hear you’re keeping bad company again.”   
  
“If anything, bad company is trying to keep me. You’re not the only person the Inquisitorius is after.”   
  
“How do you mean? Are they really so incompetent they couldn’t catch one fallen Jedi locked in a cell?” Ahsoka eases her grip on Barriss’ narrow shoulders and steps back. Barriss doesn’t open her eyes, but her lashes flutter like she might have tried, before catching herself.   
  
“I haven’t been in a cell in a long time, Ahsoka,” Barriss offers after a moment. “But I was when the Order came.” Her tone is so mild; she might as well be telling Ahsoka her preferred caf order, not reliving a massacre. “I sat and I felt lives winking out through the Force. All across the galaxy, inside the Temple. There was nothing I could do.”  
  
A muscle jumps in her cheek. Ahsoka wonders at it.   
  
“I sensed a great shadow stalking through the temple, snuffing out every light it touched. With every moment it drew closer and closer, until it stood in front of my cell doors.” Barriss takes a deep breath and wrings her hands together. Her brow might be bleeding but her injured hand, beneath its gauntlet, is red and raw. “I thought I would be next, but then it turned away. I sat in my cell for days, wondering, until the Grand Inquisitor came.”  
  
The almost meditative lilt of Barriss’ voice grows hard, flinty, straining like the edge of a vibroblade. The transition is as quick and sudden as the one she’d undergone when they were Padawans, from a worried friend guiding Ahsoka through a hopeless investigation to an assailant in all black, playing at Sith but no less lethal.   
  
Healer to soldier, friend to traitor, lightsaber to blasters. Barriss has changed so much. But if there’s one thing Ahsoka has learned about Barriss Offee, one, singular constant, it’s this: she cannot be trusted.  
  
“Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with doubts about the Order. The Grand Inquisitor was a Temple Guard, did you know that? One of the ones at my trial. He invited me to join the Inquisitorius.” She shakes her head, disgusted. The blood from her wound trickles down the arch of her nose. “He thought we were kindred.”  
  
“Wow. Wonder how he got that impression.”   
  
Barriss’ eyes snap open. “I wanted reformation, not slaughter. Whatever you think of me, you must know I would never approve of _ that. _ ”   
  
“You,” Ahsoka says, “have no idea what I think of you.” She runs her tongue over her teeth, clenches her fists. “Keep going.”   
  
Barriss glowers, but acquiesces. “I stole the first shuttle I could, and I’ve been on the run ever since. I keep my head down.” _ Unlike you, _ is left unsaid. “I’m hardly their main concern, but the Inquisitorius has far from forgotten me.”  
  
“Are they trying to kill or capture you?”   
  
“... Capture, I think. Maybe they think they can still turn me,” Barriss’ smile would be playful if the look in her eyes wasn’t so dangerous. “What about you?”  
  
Ahsoka frowns. “...Well. You’re not dead yet, are you?”  
  
“So I’m your prisoner, then?”.  
  
“I’m still thinking about it,” Ahsoka huffs. “I can tie you up, if you want.”  
  
Barriss sighs, lashes sweeping against her cheek. She looks so deceptively frail, like one good squeeze would snap her in two. Her smile is as thin as the rest of her-- narrow and sharp as a knife. The blood trickling from her forehead seems all the more stark. “That won’t be necessary, but if it will make you more comfortable, you’re free to it.”   
  
_ Sanctimonious little--  
  
_ Ahsoka grabs Barriss by the scruff of her neck and marches her to the nearest seat, just to stop her from looking like the universe’s most perfect picture of a martyr.   
  
“Sit still,” Ahsoka growls, and heads for the ‘fresher. She almost bangs her montrals against the sink fishing a medical kit from the recesses of her med cabinet and hurries back to find that Barriss has pulled off her mantle, fingers pressed to her sluggishly bleeding head wound.   
  
The glancing bolt had scorched a diagonal streak up Barriss’ forehead, burning a gap into her right eyebrow and a notch into her hairline. A similarly glancing bolt had torn open her sleeve and left a gash across her right bicep. A third had wrecked one of her blasters and ruined a perfectly good glove, but left little more than a red welt on the back of her left hand.  
  
“There’s no need to be dramatic,” Barriss murmurs, prodding at her forehead. Her disheveled hair halos her face. Despite everything, embarrassment curls in Ahsoka’s chest-- as if she’s intruded on something very private. “These things always look worse than they really are.”  
  
Barriss belatedly realizes that Ahsoka’s staring. She raises an eyebrow. “...What?”  
  
Ahsoka blinks, remembering what she was supposed to be doing. The beginnings of a smile tug at Barriss’ lips. A real one, or at least, realer than her earlier ones that didn’t quite match her eyes.  
  
“You’re acting like you’ve never seen my hair before,” Barriss says.  
  
“I haven’t,” Ahsoka mutters. She kneels before Barriss and tears open a bacta patch. “What happened to your healing abilities? You could have patched yourself up before I even got back from the ‘fresher.”   
  
Barriss hesitates. She drops her eyes. “I don’t--I don’t reach for the Force, anymore. Not unless my life depends on it.”  
  
Ahsoka remembers the tug that freed her shoto from her belt. _ Your life, Barriss? Or mine?  
  
_ “Besides,” Barriss continues, “healing yourself with the Force is never as effective as healing another person.” Confidently, with unquestioning belief, “The Force wants to be used for others, not folded back into its conduit.”   
  
“Yeah, well,” Ahsoka says, seizing Barriss’ elfin chin, “boycotting the Force is no excuse not to take care of yourself.”   
  
Barriss goes stock still. Her jaw tightens under Ahsoka’s thumb.   
  
“Let go.”   
  
Ahsoka wiggles her free hand, the bacta patch stuck to her fingers. “I’m just going to put it on you--”  
  
“I may not be a Jedi, Ahsoka, but I’m no trembling youngling either,” Barriss snaps. “I can do that myself, thank you very much.” Her lips brush Ahsoka’s palm. Her breath washes over Ahsoka’s knuckles. Ahsoka pulls away, stung.   
  
“Fine. Have at it, then.”   
  
Ahsoka watches Barriss tend to herself in silence. She wraps her arm; presses a patch against her hand; wipes the blood from her face. The head wound, strangely, she leaves mostly untouched, choosing only to smear a dollop of bacta over it before she pulls her mantle and hood back over her hair.  
  
Now that’s a relief. Seeing Barriss without a hood framing her face brings back bad memories: Barriss surrounded by Temple guards, teeth bared and snapping, Anakin’s face a thunderstorm of rage and Ahsoka’s heart broken in her chest.  
  
Barriss cocks her head, birdlike. “Well,” she says, “I suppose you’ll be wanting me off your ship.”   
  
“Yeah. Go down the hall, make two lefts, and take a long walk off a short airlock.” Ahsoka rolls her eyes. “Yes, Barriss, I want you off my ship, but I’m not going to kick you off my ship while we’re en route, I’m not going to waste my only escape pod ejecting you to the nearest planetoid, and I’m not dropping you off anywhere the Inquisitorius can find you.”  
  
Barriss raises a single brow. The froomfiest politician--and Ahsoka’s met _ a lot _ of those--could not look more disdainful.  
  
“I know, I know,” she admits, “they get their fingers into everything. But you’ve got to have a place or two to go. You’ve been on the run long enough.”   
  
“I do. Tell me where we’re headed and I’ll tell you where you can leave me.”   
  
“Ha! No.”   
  
“I don’t need the planet. Just give me a system-- _ something, _ Ahsoka. You don’t want me here.” Barriss’ narrow, pensive mouth twists but her voice strains with the weight of her affected indifference. “At least make it easier for me to leave.”   
  
Ahsoka opens her mouth, probably to say something very intimidating and sensible, but her comm pings and the moment and mood are smashed.  
  
She cups a hand over her gauntlet and scowls until Barriss turns her eyes heavensward-- too prim for an eye roll, even now.   
  
Loathe as she is to turn her back on Barriss, she can’t just turn down a transmission either. Only a handful of people have her comm code. And no one ever calls Ahsoka just to chat.  
  
With one last backward glance to make sure Barriss isn’t looking-- she’s staring fixedly at the wall, fingers plugged in her ears in a completely unnecessary display of petulance-- Ahsoka accepts the call.  
  
“Senator,” she murmurs.   
  
Senator Organa looks tired. Well, he always looks tired, but today he seems even more so. Furrows crease his brow, his mouth turned down; haggard. Ahsoka can relate.  
  
“Hello, Fulcrum. Are you alright? We heard about that business on Coruscant--”  
  
“News travels fast, huh.”  
  
“When over a dozen Inquisitors are found dead on the Emperor’s own doorstep, then yes, it does.”   
  
“It’ll take more than that to put me down.”  
  
Barriss snorts. Ahsoka twists her head over her shoulder and lets a warning growl rumble from her chest.  
  
“Okay, maybe I had help from an old… acquaintance.”   
  
“Well, the Alliance owes your acquaintance its thanks, then, for coming to the aid of its greatest agent.” He tries for a smile. He fails, but Ahsoka appreciates the effort. “Listen, Fulcrum--I hate to ask this of you, especially after your close call, but you’re our only hope.”   
  
Ahsoka’s shoulders twitch. “‘Only hope’? That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”   
  
“You’re our best shot, is what I mean. We’ve tried before, but he won’t listen to reason. If it’s you, though…” Senator Organa hesitates. He never hesitates. Ahsoka doesn’t need the Force to tell something is capital letter up. “If it’s another Jedi…”  
  
“Another? There’s _ another?”  
  
_ A clatter from behind Ahsoka. She turns to find Barriss staring wide-eyed, lips parted and haunted blue eyes wide. Her fists are straining the fabric of her cloak. Her face is the picture of small, frightened hope.   
  
Senator Organa’s blue, pixelated face shuts down.   
  
“Ah,” he says. “Barriss Offee.”   
  
“In the flesh,” she greets. Her voice is chilly and waspish, at odds with the shining depths of her eyes. Looking at her makes Ahsoka very sad, and her sadness makes her angry.   
  
“I see. I assume you must be Fulcrum’s acquaintance, then.”   
  
“Yes. Always happy to help the Rebellion’s _ finest agent _ .”  
  
Senator Organa’s little holographic eyes look aggrieved. Barriss, Ahsoka reflects, has acquired quite the talent for getting under people’s skin.   
  
“Fulcrum, I’ll send you more details on a secure line.” _ When you’re alone, _ his little holographic eyes say. “May the Force be with you.”   
  
“And you,” Ahsoka replies dully, and ends the transmission. She stands there for a moment. Her montrals ring.  
  
Another Jedi. Another Jedi, he said. Not just some poor, budding Force adept hunted down like an animal by the Inquisitorius. A true, proper Jedi. She’s not the last. She’s not alone.   
  
And Bail knew.   
  
Ever opportunistic, Barriss drawls, “Your employer is almost as obtuse as the Council used to be, and about as grateful to boot.”   
  
“Barriss,” Ahsoka snaps, whirling. She lunges for the second time that day.   
  
Her hands slam against the shuttle wall, bracketing Barriss’ head. Barriss, to her credit, doesn’t even flinch. There’s a certain dignity to the way she lifts her head, disdain swimming in her ocean eyes.   
  
“Even now, you’re still taking orders from unworthy masters.”   
  
“Barriss.”   
  
“You didn’t know,” she continues ruthlessly, “you should have been the first person he told and you didn’t know. How long have you been running around like this, _ Fulcrum _ ?" Barriss sneers. "Nice _ alias _ , Ahsoka. Is this how you operate now? A nice, loyal errand girl? You don’t even have all the pieces to the puzzle, but off you go, unquestioning, when the Rebellion calls.”   
  
“Barriss, stop making it so hard to not punch you in the face!” Ahsoka spins away from Barriss. Her lekku smacks right across Barriss’ pointed chin and spring-taut jaw. She’s lucky it’s not Ahsoka’s fist. Ahsoka clutches her montrals. “It’s not perfect, of course I know that, but at least I’m trying to help people! At least I’m not skulking across the galaxy doing _ nothing!”   
  
_ Barriss snarls, wounded. For one long moment that stretches into eternity, their ragged breaths are the only sounds in the shuttle.   
  
“Nothing? _ Nothing _ ?” Barriss spits. “I kept my head down. I _ survived _ . What have _ you _ done? You left the Jedi Order so you wouldn’t be a pawn in their games. And here you are, once again, doing a Senator’s bidding and keeping his secrets! How many times, Ahsoka?”   
  
“I _ swear _ , Barriss--”  
  
“How many times did the Council deploy us? We never even got to watch the dust settle. We swung in with our sabers and clones and self-righteousness, and never even got to _ help _ the people we hurt, Ahsoka. The Jedi, the peacekeepers of the Republic, fought a war where our only notion of ‘making peace’ was ‘kill the opposition’!"  
  
_ "Enough!” _ _  
_ _  
_ They stand together, breathing each other’s air, tasting the rage. Ahsoka’s probably quashed her montrals out of shape with how hard she’s been clutching them.   
  
“Look,” she starts. Barriss squares her shoulders like her life is on the line; like the next words off Ahsoka’s tongue could cut her down for good.  
  
There are a thousand things Ahsoka could say, needs to say. She hates that, of all those, the one she settles on is an ultimatum.  
  
“I’m landing at the nearest station to refuel and take a _ private _ comm call. If you’re still on my ship when I take off again, that’s on you. I don’t care.”  
  
Hurt flicks across Barriss’ eyes, but Ahsoka doesn’t see it. They can’t even look at each other. Barriss sighs, and stubbornly crosses her arms.  
  
“...Fine.”  
  
~*~  
  
Ahsoka isn’t sure what, exactly, she was expecting.  
  
Senator Organa had told her that her work was vital to the Rebellion; that having former Jedi within the Alliance did wonders for morale; and that if she could convince his old friend to rejoin the fight, it would mean everything.  
  
She doesn’t expect to find herself on the doorstep of a dingy clay hab, half-sunk into the sun-baked desert soil.  
  
And she certainly doesn’t expect Obi-Wan to answer the door.  
  
For a long moment, neither of them can speak. They just stare at each other in stunned silence, just absorbing how the past decade had changed them both. Obi-Wan looks pretty much how Ahsoka remembers him, albeit with a lot more gray in his beard. But Ahsoka’s just as tall as he is, now-- taller, if you count her montrals. Stronger, too.  
  
But more than anything, she was _ alive _ .  
  
“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan whispers, in disbelief.  
  
Ahsoka sniffles. Her eyes are wet.  
  
“...Master,” she chokes out.  
  
Ahsoka gasps as he yanks her into a bruising hug and throws her arms around Obi-Wan’s neck. She clings to him like the child she once was, this ghost from her past that might vanish into Tattooine’s heat haze if she so much as looks away. She shudders, smearing tears into his robe.  
  
“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan breathes, his throat tight. “I… I didn’t know if--”  
  
“I know,” Ahsoka murmurs. “I… I got your message. I made it out.”  
  
Obi-Wan’s sigh of relief becomes a wheeze as Ahsoka hugs him tighter still, squeezing the air from his lungs. She’s so much stronger than the skinny-armed teenager she was a decade ago-- strong enough, and tall enough, that her hug briefly lifts Obi-Wan off the ground. She sets him back down, sheepish, unsure of her own strength.  
  
“You got so big,” Obi-Wan chuckles, like the father he could’ve been in another life.  
  
Ahsoka just smiles through her tears and gives him another squeeze.  
  
It’s only then, as Obi-Wan looks over Ahsoka’s shoulder, that he sees the woman lurking in her shadow. Obi-Wan blinks, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“Barriss Offee?”  
  
Barriss looks like a specter of Death, hooded and cloaked in black and midnight blue. She nods, mute, unable to look Obi-Wan in the eye.  
  
Obi-Wan grows somber. He takes a deep breath.  
  
“Come inside, both of you,” he urges, grave. “We have much to discuss.”  
  
~*~  
  
Obi-Wan sits the girls down on a battered synthleather couch and tells them everything. It takes him hours to get through it all. The fall of the Jedi. The fall of the Republic. Most of all, the downfall of Anakin Skywalker.   
  
The truth-- “because you, of all people, deserve to know the truth”-- has Obi-Wan talking well into the night. Tattooine’s twin suns sink below the horizon, making way for a lonely moon, and midnight finds Ahsoka on the edge of her seat, seething, clenching her fists so tightly her rust-red skin turns white.  
  
Obi-Wan studies her anguished form, her jaw tight, fighting tears. The sheer depth of Palpatine’s deception, three _ years _ of pointless fighting solely to facilitate one madman’s rise to power, is just too much to bear. The truth flows from Obi-Wan’s lips, hollowing him out like a river through a cavern, and slams into Ahsoka with all the force of a tidal wave.  
  
Ahsoka seems smaller, now-- even smaller than she was when she and Barriss had first met as teenagers. Her once-powerful form crumples in on itself, her shoulders shaking with anger and grief.  
  
It hurts to see Ahsoka like this, even after all this time and all she’s done; more than Barriss can say.  
  
“Ahsoka?” she ventures quietly.  
  
Ahsoka takes a shuddering breath and lets it out in a rasp.  
  
“...I thought Anakin was _ dead _ ,” she chokes out. “I just thought he was dead, another victim of Order 66. Now, you tell me he’s something so much worse. The Emperor’s right hand.”  
  
“He was deceived,” Obi-Wan says gravely. “He doesn’t bear all the blame. The Emperor turned him. I failed to stop him. But ultimately, everything he did, he did in his desperation to save Padme’s life. He paved the way for a tyrant to seize the Republic. But he did it for love.”  
  
“And he still couldn’t save her, in the end,” Barriss mutters.  
  
“No,” Obi-Wan admits, mournful. “He couldn’t.”  
  
“Oh, Padme…” Ahsoka sucks in a breath. Obi-Wan reaches out, placing a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“What happened to her children?” Barriss wonders.  
  
“Senator Organa adopted the daughter. I brought the son to his uncle, here on Tattooine, and I stayed here to watch over him.” He glances down to Ahsoka, her expression clouded. He gives her shoulder a squeeze. “...I know it’s a lot to take in.”  
  
Ahsoka nods, mute.  
  
“I’ll give you a moment,” Obi-Wan murmurs. He gives Ahsoka one last pat on the shoulder before retreating to another room, leaving Ahsoka and Barriss alone on the couch.  
  
The dim lamplight casts harsh shadows across Ahsoka’s stricken face. Barriss studies her pinched, anguished expression, her brows knit with concern.  
  
“Ahsoka?” she whispers.  
  
Ahsoka’s still trembling. Barriss finds herself instinctively reaching out-- but she stops herself short, pulling away at the last moment.  
  
“The 501st,” Ahsoka blurts out.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The 501st Legion of the Grand Army of the Republic,” Ahsoka seethes. “I fought with them. Served with them for years. Rex, I know, managed to get out. But the others… he used them to-- Anakin used them to-- they marched on the Jedi Temple. He led them himself. And they… killed us. Everyone in the temple. Everyone who came back, before Obi-Wan warned us to stay away. Everyone...”  
  
Ahsoka draws the shoto from her belt pouch, turning it over and over in her hands. She takes another shuddering breath.  
  
Ahsoka scowls. The shoto comes alive in her hands.  
  
“I gave up my old ones,” Ahsoka explains through gritted teeth, cast in the shoto’s eerie yellow glow. “I made my new white lightsabers from scratch. But this… it was supposed to be something to remember him by. Now, it’s just… a memory. Of how he failed, and how we all failed him…””  
  
Ahsoka trails off. Her eyes glint in the shoto’s light. She idly spins it in her hands, angles it towards her heart--  
  
“Ahsoka!” Barriss gasps.  
  
A hand darts out. Ahsoka jumps, startled by the flash of concern in Barriss’ eyes and the feeling of Barriss’ deft fingers coiled, nimble but firm, around her wrist. She swallows hard, and deactivates the blade. Numbly, she lets Barriss pull the shoto out of her hands.  
  
“What?” Ahsoka asks, with a broken smile. “Worried I might do something reckless?”  
  
“No, that doesn’t sound like you at all,” Barriss mutters.  
  
Ahsoka almost laughs. Almost. After a long moment, she just shakes her head.  
  
“After what he did... your stunt at the Temple doesn’t seem so bad.”  
  
Barriss recoils as if slapped. The comment stings-- and Barriss knows she deserves it-- but it doesn’t hurt nearly so much as the look in Ahsoka’s eyes. Devastated. Frustrated. Lost. The pain in Ahsoka’s eyes snags her heart like a fishhook. She reaches out again, on instinct, and this time she doesn’t pull away.  
  
It’s just a touch. Just her hand against Ahsoka’s arm. But it sends an electrical thrill through Barriss’ whole body and makes Ahsoka go stiff with a sharp gasp. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Ahsoka reaches up and places a hand over hers.  
  
Their eyes meet in the smoky half-light. A thousand feelings pass between them in an instant, and Barriss knows the names of only a few: warmth. Gratitude. Longing…  
  
The moment shatters. Ahsoka’s vulnerable expression retreats behind a sheepish smile.  
  
“Sorry,” Ahsoka murmurs. “I just… need some space. To think.”  
  
Ahsoka gently removes Barriss’ hand from her arm. Her touch warms Barriss to the core in an instant and leaves her shivering as she pulls away.  
  
Hours pass. Eventually Ahsoka collects herself enough to join Obi-Wan at his tiny little dining table, scarcely big enough for one. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka talk quietly about Ahsoka’s work in the years after the fall of the Republic, exploits that seem dimmer, now, in the shadow cast by her Master’s fall.  
  
Barriss lingers on the couch, just out of earshot. She doesn’t belong here. She can feel it in her core. Deep down, she wonders if she really belongs anywhere. She’d thought about it, earlier, with Ahsoka’s hand in hers.  
  
It wasn’t home. But it was close. Closer than a lot of places.   
  
~*~  
  
Barriss sighs, anxiously spinning her holocomm in her hands. They’d been talking since the afternoon, and it was already the middle of the night, but none of them were in any mood to sleep. Idly, Barriss clicks open her comm and scrolls through the saved holo files. One, near the very end of the list, catches her eye.  
  
_ “...This message is a warning and a reminder to all surviving Jedi: trust in the Force. Do not return to the Temple. That time has passed, and our future is uncertain…” _  
  
Barriss shakes her head, melancholy. She holds up her comm, comparing Obi-Wan in the present with his preserved, projected likeness. Even in the wake of the Republic’s fall, the hologram of Obi-Wan still has some measure of dignity. Ten years later, he’s reduced to a frail old man hiding in the desert.  
  
Look at him now. Look at all of them now.  
  
_ “We will each be challenged,” _ Obi-Wan recites, a holographic ghost. _ “Our trust. Our faith. Our friendships. But we must persevere, and, in time, I believe a new hope will emerge…” _  
  
There’s a soft thunk from the kitchen as Ahsoka bangs her elbows onto the table.  
  
“Why not?” Ahsoka groans, running her hands down her lekku in frustration.  
  
“I’m sorry, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan explains. “I’m afraid you’re far from the first messenger Senator Organa has sent to my doorstep. Maybe he thought he’d have a better chance of convincing me by sending a familiar face, but my answer has not changed.”  
  
“Just think of all the good we could do,” Ahsoka pleads. “I’m technically not even a Knight, and just being among the Rebellion, just being seen, has been a huge boost to morale. You should see their faces, they just-- it’s hope, Master. They see me and they _ hope. _ Just imagine if they had a Jedi Master on their side.”  
  
“None of us are Jedi anymore,” Obi-Wan sighs.  
  
“Former, then, whatever,” Ahsoka says. “The point is, Master, we need you. We need you to _ fight _ .”  
  
Across the room, Barriss flinches.  
  
“I’m getting too old for fighting,” Obi-Wan begins.  
  
“Oh, don’t give me that. You’re not even twice my age.”  
  
“--and even if I could fight, I couldn’t leave,” Obi-Wan continues. “I’m needed here.”  
  
“And why, exactly, is that?”  
  
They look up. Barriss strides up to the table, a cold, dangerous look in her eyes.  
  
“Why _ do _ you need to stay here?” she repeats, her voice like ice.  
  
Obi-Wan exhales, and closes his eyes. “...I need to watch over Anakin’s son. I owe it to him, to keep him safe from the Empire.”  
  
“To what end?” Barriss presses.  
  
“He has the potential,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve already sensed it within him. When the time is right, I will teach him how to use his gift. And I will teach him who his father was. What he could have been.”  
  
Barriss sneers. “Oh, yes? Will you pick out a nice cloak for him? Maybe help him build his first lightsaber?”  
  
“Barriss…” Ahsoka warns.  
  
“This galaxy may need him,” Obi-Wan says patiently.  
  
“Right,” Barriss spits, “because what this galaxy needs is one more child soldier! What will you do? Send him out with a lightsaber and have him face down the Imperial Army?”  
  
“I’m not going to raise a child solely to send him to his death,” Obi-Wan bristles. “I’ve no intention of making a martyr.”  
  
“But that is what he will become!” Barriss rails. She whirls around, stabbing a finger towards Ahsoka. “That is what _ you’re _ trying to recruit!”  
  
“Barriss, stop it!” Ahsoka snaps.  
  
“Is he the ‘new hope’ you had in mind?” Barriss snarls. “The son of the infamous Anakin Skywalker, rising from the ashes of the dead and damned to rebuild the Jedi Order!”  
  
“I’m trying to preserve our culture,” Obi-Wan argues. “Listen to yourself, Barriss! You were a Jedi!”  
  
“So were _ you _ !” Barriss shrieks. “You were the best of us! You were on the High Council! You had a chance to stop this, but you couldn’t! You failed! And why? Because the Force _ doesn’t care _ about us! It doesn’t care about upholding tradition, or peace of mind, or anything! The Force let this happen! So, either we deserved to get slaughtered like animals, or The Force is nothing worth my devotion! I won’t stand here and watch you indoctrinate a child for an order that will abandon him like it abandoned all of us!”  
  
“Barriss, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Obi-Wan snaps.  
  
“Do _ you _ ?!” Barriss all-but screams. “You were a Jedi Master! You were supposed to have _ all the answers! _ ”  
  
“Well, I don’t!” Obi-Wan cries.  
  
Silence. Obi-Wan stands there, panting, clenching and unclenching his fists. Eventually, he sinks into a chair. After spending so long looking up to Obi-Wan, both figuratively and literally, for the first time in her life, Ahsoka truly sees him eye-to-eye. He’s not a venerated Jedi Master, not in this moment. He’s just a man.  
  
“...I don’t have the answers,” Obi-Wan confesses. “I don’t have wisdom, or strength. I don’t have anything. The Empire took everything from me. From us. But even a man who has nothing can still have faith, so don’t you _ dare _ take this from me. You’re right; maybe the Force doesn’t care. Maybe the Force doesn’t need us. But people need the Force.”  
  
“No,” Barriss mutters, with quiet conviction. “People need other people.”  
  
Silence. Ahsoka’s voice is soft and plaintive in the pained quiet.  
  
“We shouldn’t fight,” she pleads. “Look at us. Maybe the Empire beat us, but we’re still alive, aren’t we? We’re alive, and we’re together. Doesn’t that mean something?”  
  
The silence speaks more than any words can say. Obi-Wan combs his fingers through his hair and glances at the floor. Barriss crosses her arms, looks away.  
  
Ahsoka sighs and hangs her head.  
  
Obi-Wan steps away for a moment, returning with an armful of blankets. He rolls them out across the chilly, baked-clay floor. He meets Ahsoka’s eyes for a moment, before flinching away. He looks more exhausted, more vulnerable, than she’s ever seen him.  
  
“You’re welcome to stay until morning,” Obi-Wan says quietly. “Send Senator Organa my regards, and my regrets that I won’t be joining him.”  
  
~*~  
  
“Well, now, that is disappointing,” Senator Organa sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Though not, perhaps, surprising.”  
  
Ahsoka delivers her report on the move as Senator Bail Organa and an honor guard of Alderaan Planetary Defense walk briskly through the corridors of an Alliance outpost. Every few hundred meters the security detail shoves a pair of double doors open with a bang and ushers the Senator through, their formation impeccable, their coordination superb. Ahsoka, by contrast, only has an entourage of one-- Barriss, following at her heels, more demure and yet more deadly than the PDF squad by far.  
  
Rebel personnel scurry around them. The outpost is buzzing with activity. There are always things to do, always places to be. Senator Organa can’t go ten steps without someone running up to him and shoving a dataslate in his face, handing him some document to sign and authorize with a press of his biometrically coded signet ring. When they turn a corner and find themselves beset by a veritable mob of underlings, Bail finally asks Ahsoka and his security detail to wait a moment, rather than continuing to process these requests on the move.  
  
Ahsoka’s just thankful she has a moment to breathe. She steps away from the gaggle of personnel, Barriss pulling her aside.  
  
“You’re really going to let me into an Alliance outpost? You’re going to let me listen in on the dealings of a founder of the Rebellion?” Barriss whispers, incredulous.  
  
“It was this or leave you back on the shuttle,” Ahsoka hisses. “I’d rather have you here, where I can keep an eye on you.”  
  
“You and everyone else in this blasted place,” Barriss mutters venomously.  
  
Barriss’ attitude is trying to hide it, but Ahsoka knows she’s rattled. There’s something about the Rebellion-- something about devoting yourself to a cause-- that hits Barriss far too close to home. Not to mention the suspicious glances from passing Rebel personnel-- and especially not the fact that Bail Organa, of all people, is Ahsoka’s _ boss _ .  
  
He knows what Barriss did. He was there at Ahsoka’s trial, when Ahsoka was about to take the fall for the bombing of the Jedi Temple. He was there when Barriss confessed, clearing Ahsoka’s name and damning herself in the process. She was a terrorist, in his eyes. Radical. Rogue.  
  
He knows. And so far he’s either been too tactful, or too busy, to comment on why Ahsoka’s traveling with the woman who betrayed her.  
  
Every so often he glances her way. And it isn’t disgust, or hatred, in his eyes.  
  
It’s pity. The very thought makes Barriss sick.  
  
“Ahsoka,” Bail calls.  
  
He emerges from the crowd clamoring for his attention with a gaunt young man beside him who hasn’t quite grown into his officer’s jacket.  
  
“Ahsoka, before you go, there’s someone you should meet,” Bail says, ushering the man forward.  
  
“Cassian Andor, Alliance Intelligence,” he says, offering his hand.  
  
There's a cleverness in his eyes that she instantly likes. Something about his voice that tugs at her memory.  
  
“Ahsoka Tano,” she replies, and gives his hand a firm shake.  
  
Cassian turns, politely offering his hand. “And you, Miss…?”  
  
Barriss glowers. If looks could kill, Cassian would have a smoking hole through his chest.  
  
Bail clears his throat. “...Cassian here was recently promoted to Captain. He’ll be managing our network in the Albarrio sector, and will hopefully ease some of the pressure of your already strenuous workload.”  
  
“I’m always glad for another signal boost,” Ahsoka replies.  
  
“I’ve heard so much,” Cassian grins. He says it like an inside joke. “It will be an honor to work with you, Lady Tano.”  
  
Bail warmly clasps Ahsoka’s wrist in farewell-- and leaves an encrypted data tile tucked into her bracer. Barriss is almost impressed. It’s some nice sleight of hand for someone without the Potential. Then again, he’s a politician, so she should hardly be surprised.  
  
“I’ll be in touch,” Bail nods. “Be safe.”  
  
“No promises,” Ahsoka grins and sees them off with a wave.  
  
Barriss falls in step beside her as they leave, her eyes narrowed in thought. Ahsoka’s cocksure grin, the confidence in her stride… she’s so much stronger than the girl she was when Barriss saw her ten years ago. But there’s something about that strength that feels… fragile. Forced. As if Ahsoka’s putting on a brave face not just for the crowd, but for herself.  
  
“‘Lady Tano’?” Barriss mutters, scornful.  
  
Ahsoka’s eyes flick her way in annoyance. “Why, you don’t like it?”  
  
Barriss sniffs. “I suppose it’s better than ‘Master Jedi’.”  
  
They pick their way through the winding corridors until they emerge in the hangar-- or more accurately, the cave that passes for a hangar on this moon in the middle of nowhere. Ahsoka’s unmarked shuttle, a civilian model ubiquitous throughout the galaxy, sits on its landing struts, its boarding ramp open and waiting.  
  
A woman comes running up to meet them, her dark hair done up in braids and a honey yellow scarf wrapped around her throat.  
  
“Ahsoka!” she beams, hugging a dataslate to her chest.  
  
“Hey, Kaeden!” The warmth in Ahsoka’s voice makes Barriss’ breath catch in her throat.  
  
“I just wanted to double check your requisition order before I went out and restocked your medical supplies,” Kaeden says, showing Ahsoka her slate, close enough for their shoulders to touch. “You’re going through a _ lot _ of bacta, and I just want to make sure you’re… oh!”  
  
Kaeden finally notices Barriss lurking in Ahsoka’s shadow. She sucks in a breath.  
  
“...Oh, wow…” Kaeden whispers, but not very well, since Barriss can still clearly hear her. She pulls Ahsoka into a conspiratorial huddle, a hand against her arm.  
  
“She’s so pretty, ‘Soka,” Kaeden murmurs, entranced. “Is she your… partner?”  
  
A flicker of… something slithers down Barriss’ spine and coils in her gut. She snatches the girl’s wrist, Kaeden squeaking in alarm, and pointedly moves her hand off of Ahsoka’s arm.  
  
“Not even close,” Barriss growls. She turns with a huff and stalks away.  
  
Kaeden steps back, eyes wide, mouthing a wary ‘o-kay’ at Barriss’ retreating form. She glances up, meeting Ahsoka’s eyes.  
  
“...I’ll, uh… I’ll have your medical shipment brought here within the hour,” Kaeden mutters. “Is… Is she okay?”  
  
“She’ll be fine,” Ahsoka says. “She’s… new.”  
  
“I’m glad they finally gave you someone to... look after you?” Kaeden quirks her head. When Ahsoka wiggles her hand with an high-pitched _ eeeeh, _ Kaeden laughs and takes Ahsoka’s shoulder with a squeeze. “Well, she seems protective, and very competent. I worry about you, you know? I’d hate to think you’re somewhere light years away, facing all this danger on your own.”  
  
Ahsoka watches Barriss vanish up the boarding ramp into her shuttle, an age-old feeling tugging at her chest.  
  
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “Me, too.”  
  
~*~  
  
Ahsoka’s shuttle is made for two. She’s never had any reason to invite others onboard, though, not since she started this Rebellion spy business, so learning to share the ship with another person is an experience-- much less the woman who had nearly let Ahsoka go to the gallows in her place.   
  
Barriss, unsurprisingly, owns very little. Her clothes, her now-singular blaster, tools to maintain her blaster, a holocomm unit, and a not-insignificant amount of credits are all she’s brought to Ahsoka’s ship. No lightsaber.   
  
It’s for the best. Ahsoka doesn’t know what she’d do if she saw Barriss with Ventress’s sabers in her hands again.   
  
They sleep facing one another in the quarters made for two. Ahsoka could reach out from her hard shuttle-standard cot and touch Barriss’ arm if she wanted to. She doesn’t want to.   
  
Barriss probably couldn’t at all, though--height and trust being her two unalterable deficiencies.  
  
The closeness would have been sweet when they were Padawans, but now Ahsoka only allows it because Barriss always slips into sleep first, and Ahsoka herself can only sleep when she’s certain Barriss is too deep in REM to put a blaster bolt between her eyes.  
  
Barriss never tries a thing, for all her acidity, but Ahsoka sleeps with her sabers--and shoto--under her pillow anyway.   
  
She also wears her cloak to bed. “It gets cold,” she says, as if that explains everything, but Ahsoka suspects it’s a habit of life on the run; Barriss, sleeping with everything she owned close at hand, lest she wake up and find them stolen.  
  
Barriss sleeps, curled up, facing the wall. In the stillness, she’s not the jaded, sharp-tongued woman she is during the day. She’s like a stray cat, hissing at anyone who ventures too close.  
  
Ahsoka spends her nights staring at the back of Barriss’ head, as if her eyes could let her look past her hood, her hair, under her skin, through her skull, and into her thoughts. But Barriss keeps her secrets to herself, physically and mentally. She’s cut off; in her words, in her body language. Even in the Force.  
  
They still know each other, though. More than they realize.  
  
“What are you staring at?” Barriss mumbles into the wall, when Ahsoka had been sure she was already asleep.  
  
“Nothing,” Ahsoka mutters, glancing away.  
  
“I know what you’re thinking,” Barriss mutters. “It doesn’t take a mind reader. You’re asking yourself if I can be trusted. If I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”  
  
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ahsoka grumbles.  
  
“You’re wondering why I’m still here,” Barriss says. Flat. No emotion. No judgment. “You’re wondering if I’m worth it.”  
  
Ahsoka sighs, and rolls over.  
  
“Go to sleep, Barriss,” she mutters. “Just go to sleep…”  
  
The days pass like this. Barriss’ presence sandpapers Ahsoka’s patience until both their nerves are frayed. Having Barriss back in her life is like prodding at an old wound, still open and stinging, red and raw-- which only makes it more frustrating when Barriss herself is so aloof and closed-off. Barriss only emerges from her veil of wary, watchful scorn to lash out at anything resembling devotion to a cause, which, unfortunately, is pretty much everything Ahsoka does. But for all the frustration, Ahsoka can’t bring herself to send Barriss away.  
  
There’s something between them. Maybe there always was. But now it’s all wrapped up in tragedy and lost time and their years apart, tangled up in knots. A broken bone healed wrong, fused but misaligned.  
  
One evening, on their way out of the ship, Ahsoka pulls Barriss aside-- or she tries, and the barest touch of her fingers against Barriss’ arm makes her flinch away.  
  
“What?” Barriss snaps. Ahsoka bites back an irritated growl.  
  
“...Here,” Ahsoka says, after a moment. “You should hold onto this.”  
  
She offers Barriss her yellow-bladed shoto. Barriss raises an eyebrow in a look of bemused disbelief that was quickly becoming routine.  
  
“What?” Ahsoka asks, defensive. “Just in case. Don’t give me that look.”  
  
“It’s yours.”  
  
“You lost your other blaster. I owe you,” Ahsoka insists. “Just take it. I trust you.”  
  
She says it without thinking, but it stops them both in their tracks. Their eyes meet for a breathless moment. Both of them are painfully aware of the fact that Barriss had already stabbed Ahsoka in the back once before, and here she was, handing her another knife.  
  
“I trust you,” Ahsoka echoes quietly. “Or at least… I want to.”  
  
_ You really shouldn’t _ , Barriss muses.  
  
Silence. Eventually, Ahsoka sighs.  
  
“Come on,” she says, pulling her cloak off its wall hook. “Hutts don’t like to be kept waiting.”  
  
Ahsoka pounds the hatch release, and the boarding ramp lowers with a pressurized hiss. Barriss finds herself staring. It would be so easy for Barriss to ignite this shoto and plunge it into the valley between Ahsoka’s shoulder blades. To run, and never look back. But it’s Ahsoka, now, who doesn’t look back, who marches down the ramp and trusts Barriss to be right behind.  
  
The shoto lies coiled in Barriss’ slim fingers, heavy with what it means to Ahsoka and what it means, now, for Barriss to be carrying it. Anakin’s fall from grace. His failure, and those who failed him. Loyalty. Love. Abandonment. Pain.  
  
Anakin Skywalker is long gone. But Barriss is still here. Still fighting.  
  
Even if she doesn’t quite know why.  
  
~*~  
  
Another day. Another argument. Ahsoka’s work has her face down gangsters, pirates, the Inquisitorius, and the Imperial Army, but the worst fights are at home. And as the days stretch into weeks, Ahsoka’s patience only goes so far.  
  
“That’s it!” Ahsoka finally snaps, throwing her hands up. “What do you want from me, Barriss?”  
  
“Oh, kriff you, Ahsoka,” Barriss sneers. “If you want me off of your ship, just say the word.”  
  
“I don’t want you gone! But I don’t you to stay if you’re going to have such an _ attitude _ about it!” Ahsoka huffs. “Why are you still here, Barriss, if you apparently hate me and everything I stand for? What do you want? Do you even know? Listen, if the only reason you’re on this ship is so you have a roof over your head and a better place to sleep than bare rock, then that’s fine! But I need to know!”  
  
“Is that what I am to you? Your charity case?” Barriss snarls. “Do you think you’re so much better than me, running around the galaxy at the whim of a Senator in exile, nothing more than an Alliance attack dog--”  
  
“Stop it, Barriss. Just stop it!” Ahsoka snaps. “Every day, you have something to say about me, or Obi-Wan, or Bail, or the Alliance. You’re angry. I get it. But I don’t think you’re _ really _ angry at Bail _ or _ Obi-Wan, and I’m _ pretty _ sure you’re not really angry at me.”  
  
“Because you know me _ so _ well, is that it?” Barriss scowls; gasps; goes still.  
  
Ahsoka’s hand is on her shoulder, but it’s not a threat-- it’s a plea.  
  
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” Ahsoka insists, blowing out an exasperated sigh. “Can’t you just… _ talk _ to me?”  
  
Barriss tries to move Ahsoka’s hand off her arm, but her hand lingers over hers. Their eyes meet for a moment, and Barriss lets out a shuddering sigh.  
  
“What can I do, Barriss?” Ahsoka asks, so tender it makes her heart ache. “What do you want?”  
  
Barriss’ eyes flick guiltily over Ahsoka’s shoulder, but she snatches her gaze away. Finally, she moves Ahsoka’s hand off of her arm and stands apart, hugging herself.  
  
“We’re Jedi, Ahsoka,” Barriss says, staring at the floor. “It’s never been about what we want.”  
  
“We’re not Jedi anymore,” Ahsoka says quietly. “I think that much is clear.”  
  
She follows Barriss’ gaze over her shoulder, to the shuttle’s piloting console and navcomputer. She bumps a friendly elbow against Barriss’, meeting her eyes.  
  
“Come on,” Ahsoka urges. “Let me help you. There must be something you want to do. Maybe somewhere you want to go.”  
  
Barriss takes a deep breath. She swallows hard.  
  
“...Yes,” she says, her jaw tight. “There is.”  
  
~*~  
  
It’s supposed to rain at funerals.  
  
At least, Ahsoka thinks so. Most memorial services she’s been to have been under the brilliant light of a Coruscanti sunset. They were dignified, restrained. Fitting for Jedi and the clones under their command, noble even in their grief. Civilians, on the other hand, were free to cry as openly as they wished, and the planet itself would weep along with them.  
  
Ahsoka would have taken either of those over the pervasive, ghost-like fog that shrouded them now.  
  
Barriss looks like something out of a children’s tale, one told with whimsy but laced with quiet horror. Hooded and cloaked in black and blue, stalking the foggy space between the great trunks of huge wroshyr trees, rising around her like pillars holding up the sky.  
  
Head bowed, hands clasped, her face a mask of calm.  
  
Now, more than ever, Barriss looks like a ghost.  
  
They wander the woods for hours, Ahsoka following Barriss’ lead. Eventually they emerge in a clearing, seemingly indistinguishable from any other stand of towering wroshyr trees if not for the shadow of vast wooden platforms and walkways high above. An entire city, carved into tree trunks and sprawling across the jungle canopy, now sitting empty. Hollow.  
  
Ahsoka feels something on the edge of her senses-- wavering, frail. She frowns, wondering, until she realizes that it’s _ Barriss _ , the first time she’s sensed her through the Force since the fight on Coruscant’s side streets. In the weeks since, Barriss had closed herself off, physically and mentally, an empty space in the Force where a person should have been.  
  
All this time, so carefully masked, and now she’s starting to slip through.  
  
“Barriss?” Ahsoka murmurs.  
  
“I’m fine,” Barriss snaps, and Ahsoka feels the walls reflexively shut tight. After a moment, she takes a steadying breath. Her eyes flick towards Ahsoka’s. “...Sorry. And not just-- not just for snapping. For… everything.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Ahsoka says quietly. “Do what you have to do.”  
  
Barriss turns and strides into the center of the clearing, fog trailing in her wake like a macabre imitation of a wedding veil.  
  
“I never knew my parents,” Barriss confesses, to empty air. “I was so young when I was taken in by the Order. They say to let the Jedi become your family, but I didn’t feel that way, not for years. When Master Luminara chose me as her Padawan, I was so excited to have her. A Mirialan, like me.”  
  
Barriss shudders, clenching her fists. She kneels, pressing a trembling palm against the soil.  
  
“...Master,” Barriss whispers. “You were a better teacher than a mother. You never held me, and you were sparing with your praise. But I loved you, Master. I looked up to you. You taught me to heal, to protect. When the Republic dragged us into their war, you kept me safe as best you could. You tried. I want to believe you did everything in your power, and tried. You taught me to fight. I…”  
  
Barriss falters. She takes in a haggard breath.  
  
“I wasn’t with you, at the end,” Barriss confesses. “I was across the galaxy, locked up by my own mistakes. But I didn’t hate you, Master, and I didn’t hate the Jedi. I did it for love-- because I knew the Jedi could be something _ better _ . I-- I know how hollow that sounds, now, but I need you to believe me… I need you to know…”  
  
Barriss shudders. She lifts her head, gazing up at the abandoned treetop village, at the tree trunks scarred by blaster fire, long since healed over.  
  
Barriss pounds a fist into the ground.  
  
“Three years,” she seethes. “Three years, we fought the Republic’s war, all so some petty tyrant could live out a juvenile power fantasy. Three years of bloodshed, countless crimes, and for what? For nothing! For the whims of a madman! For this worthless patch of soil that doesn’t even remember your name!”  
  
A powerful gust sweeps through the clearing, nearly smashing Ahsoka off her feet.  
  
“Barriss?” Ahsoka calls, her eyes wide, as Barriss’ cloak rises above her in an unnatural wind.  
  
“Thirteen _ years _ !” Barriss rails. “Thirteen _ years _ of fighting! Almost half my life! And for what? Just so I can drag myself through another day with no direction, no future! I would give anything to go back to the days when you were with me. When life made sense! Master Yoda was here on Kashyyyk, and _ he _ managed to escape! Why did he live and not you? Why did _ I _ live and not you?!”  
  
Barriss screams her grief into the sky, echoing through the Force. Power explodes around her, forcing Ahsoka back. Wind whips around her, shearing bark from the nearby trees, a tornado of shrapnel orbiting around her form. She doubles over, clutching her head, and Ahsoka swears she can see a flash of yellow in her eyes.  
  
“I lost _ everything _ !” Barriss shrieks. “I lost you, Master! I lost Ahsoka! Everyone I ever cared about! Everyone I ever _ loved _ ! Why am I still here when I have _ nothing _ left?!”  
  
The floodgates open wide. The tempest roils around her, seething with years of misery and shattered faith. Arcs of yellow lightning flash between Barriss’ fingers and lash out across the clearing, wild, untamed, searing gouges into the trees. Barriss crumples to the ground, forced down by the monstrous weight of her despair…  
  
...until she feels strong arms curl around her, in the eye of the storm.  
  
Barriss goes rigid, her breath catching in her throat.  
  
“I’m still here,” Ahsoka whispers into Barriss’ throat. Her shoulders shake. She sags against Barriss, pressing so hard against her that Barriss feels the shape and point of her fangs when she speaks. “You have me. _ You have me _ .”  
  
The storm of her emotions blows out across the trees, dispelling the fog. Through the treetops, high above, come the first, frail slivers of sunlight. Pale, ghostly gray makes way for deep shadows and scattered light.  
  
Barriss sinks into Ahsoka’s embrace, openly weeping for the first time in years. Ahsoka holds her until Barriss can’t cry anymore, and a long while longer after that.  
  
~*~  
  
Barriss doesn’t say a word on the trip back.  
  
Barriss is normally reserved, so this isn’t too out of the ordinary. But what really bothers Ahsoka is the vacant, haunted look in Barriss’ eyes and the way she spends hours staring at the wall, lost in herself.  
  
The sharpness, the cynical edge Barriss had carried with her ever since she’d come to Ahsoka’s rescue on Coruscant, had been sanded away. Instead, a deep, ghostly melancholy had settled over Barriss’ shoulders like a cloak, and Ahsoka isn’t sure if that’s a step up or not.  
  
And the nightmares. Those are new. Or maybe they aren’t; maybe they’d been buried under bitterness for all this time, only coming out now that the wound was red and raw.  
  
Every night, Ahsoka hears her. Whimpering in her sleep, her fingers shaking, silent tears streaming down her face.  
  
One night, Barriss wakes up screaming. Ahsoka pulls her into her arms and doesn’t let her go until the tears stop. When they wake up twined together in the morning, so close and so warm it makes Ahsoka’s heart ache, she looks into Barriss’ eyes. No traces of yellow. Just that deep, haunting blue: in Barriss’ eyes she sees warmth, gratitude… maybe even longing.  
  
But then they get up, and they pull on their boots, and neither of them know what to say.   
  
~*~  
  
Days go by. Barriss isn’t sure how many. Two. Maybe three. Most of them are spent in a fog of memory. All she can think about is the fate of her Master. That, and the girl who stayed with her when she thought she’d lost everything else.  
  
A hand comes to rest on her shoulder, and Barriss goes stiff. The thunk of porcelain on wood cuts through her tangled thoughts. She exhales, accepting the mug of tea from Obi-Wan with muted thanks.  
  
“I’m sorry, Barriss,” Obi-Wan says gently. “She was one of the best of us.”  
  
Barriss takes a deep breath and sighs.  
  
“...You know… she really wasn’t,” Barriss whispers. “She was… cold. Stricter than most. Stricter than you, even. I feel like she thought she’d be guilty of attachment if she so much as looked me in the eye.”  
  
Obi-Wan nods. “She was a Jedi.”  
  
Barriss shakes her head sadly. “She was a person.”  
  
Obi-Wan frowns, but he doesn’t argue. He gives Barriss’ shoulder a squeeze, before making his way out the door.  
  
Ahsoka is standing outside, arms crossed. She’s watching Tattooine’s twin suns creep down towards the horizon, trading the blistering daylight heat for the nightly frost. Her cloak billows around her form.  
  
“You cut a striking figure,” Obi-Wan muses, as he emerges from his hab. “One Jedi against the world.”  
  
Ahsoka nods, but says nothing. Obi-Wan walks up beside her.  
  
“I don’t suppose you’re here to try convincing me again?” he offers.  
  
“No,” Ahsoka says. “Believe it or not, I’m here to ask for your counsel.”  
  
“Whatever _ that’s _ worth,” Obi-Wan sighs. “Ahsoka. You’re not a child anymore. You’re a woman grown, a Knight, a champion of the Rebel Alliance. I’m an old man hiding in the desert.”  
  
“You’re _ not _ that old,” Ahsoka insists.  
  
“The point remains,” Obi-Wan shrugs. “Who am I to guide your path now?”  
  
“You’re planning to do the same thing to Luke, aren’t you?” Ahsoka asks. “Why him and not me?”  
  
Obi-Wan pauses, considering.  
  
“If Barriss were here,” Ahsoka continues, “I bet she’d say it was because you can mold him into whatever you want. He’s a blank slate, while Barriss and I are old enough to talk back, think for ourselves.”  
  
Obi-Wan winces. He shakes his head, letting out a weary sigh.  
  
“...It pains me to hear such cynicism from someone so young. Someone who was once so bright, and studious, and--”  
  
“Obedient?” Ahsoka asks.  
  
“...Indeed,” Obi-Wan admits. “What a winding road she’s followed. Luminara’s brilliant young pupil. Rising star of the Order. Soldier. Terrorist. Fugitive. And now, with you, and Luke, and Leia, you may well be the future of the Jedi Order. If the Jedi manage to survive at all.”  
  
Ahsoka knit her brow. “Barriss said something. She said… she wanted a reformation. Not a slaughter.”  
  
A shadow passes over Obi-Wan’s eyes. He sighs heavily. “...I fear that the Order had become so old, so inflexible… that one could only have come with the other.”  
  
“Maybe,” Ahsoka murmurs. She takes a breath. “Why did she save me?”  
  
“The Force is in all things, Ahsoka. It guides us to those we are connected to, in word, thought, and deed,” Obi-Wan muses. “It’s a pity that tragedy is that which connects us now.”  
  
“Okay, that’s how we found each other,” Ahsoka says. “But why did she save me?”  
  
“Do you really not know?”  
  
Ahsoka looks away. “...Maybe not. But it would make things a lot easier if you spelled it out for me.”  
  
“I could say that it was pure pragmatism, and that she fought only for her own survival. I could say that the Inquisitorius was after her as well, that she was outnumbered and outmatched, and the only way she was getting out of there was with you,” Obi-Wan says. “But that’s not what you believe, or what I believe, is it?”  
  
“...No,” Ahsoka says, sheepish.  
  
“You think she did it for love.”  
  
“...Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s complicated.” Ahsoka sighs. She shakes her head, muttering. “I mean, we’re Jedi. What do any of us know about love?”  
  
“Have you… _ asked _ her?”  
  
“What? No!” Ahsoka squeals.  
  
“That _ would _ be more straightforward than seeking the wisdom of a Jedi Master,” Obi-Wan said dryly.  
  
“I don’t know!” Ahsoka throws her hands up, exasperated. “There’s… I _ think _ there’s something between us. We… had a moment, back on Kashyyyk. But before that… I don’t know, it’s complicated! Like, everywhere we go, we keep arguing. She hates the Jedi, she hates the Republic, and whatever she feels about me is the definition of ‘messy’. But she’s still here, even when it sounds like she doesn’t want to be. I don’t get it.”  
  
Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, and sighs.  
  
“Ahsoka,” he begins, “let me tell you something. I have served the Jedi Order all my life. I have seen its faults, its shortcomings, many of them quite personally. Now that it’s fallen, I still believe that one day, we will be able to rebuild it. To start new, fresh, and create a better Order, a wiser Order, free from the rot that fractured us before. It is that faith that allows me to endure.  
  
“But Barriss is different. She was a model Padawan, Ahsoka. Why? Because she committed herself to the Order, body, mind, and soul. Now that it’s gone… what does she have left?”  
  
“...Nothing,” Ahsoka mutters.  
  
“Does she?” Obi-Wan wonders. “Life goes on, even when you don’t want to. The Jedi have fallen, and our future is uncertain. But if you still have faith, then hope will arise. Though it was born of tragedy, and loss, there is also an opportunity here. A chance to create something better than before. A chance to create something new.”  
  
Ahsoka glances at him, squinting. “Master, what are you saying?”  
  
“I’m saying that the Force is bigger than any of us. The Force was here before the Jedi, and will still be here long after we’re gone. That sense of… _ continuity _ is what makes it such a pillar of our faith. But if the Force itself doesn’t care, if the Force itself merely exists and bears witness without any regard for justice or compassion or love, then it’s up to the people. And Barriss really needs a person right now.”  
  
Ahsoka blinks. She considers that for a long moment, staring down at the sand.  
  
“But am _ I _ the right person?” Ahsoka mutters. She blows out a troubled sigh. “Master?”  
  
Ahsoka glances beside her and gasps. She whirls around, searching, but Obi-Wan is nowhere to be seen.  
  
“How did he do that?” Ahsoka wonders, astounded.  
  
“Ahsoka?”  
  
Ahsoka whirls. Barriss is standing on the steps of Obi-Wan’s hab. There’s something different about her now-- something softer. Not quite fragile, but… open. The woman beneath the mask. A woman she doesn’t quite know, but finds she wants to.  
  
Ahsoka’s expression softens in a heartbeat.  
  
“...Hey,” she says gently. “Are you okay?”  
  
Barriss sidles up beside her. She looks better than she did when they first arrived-- a little more color in her cheeks, fewer shadows under her eyes.  
  
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Barriss replies. “You’ve been out here for awhile.”  
  
“I’m okay,” Ahsoka shrugs. “Just thinking.”  
  
‘Thoughtful’ isn’t a word Barriss would normally use to describe Ahsoka. She blinks, her lips curling into an amused half-smile. Compared to the brittle, knifelike smiles she’s seen from Barriss so far, this one warms Ahsoka to the core.  
  
“...Okay. Well, don’t stay out here too long, or you’ll catch a cold.”  
  
Barriss moves to slide the hatch shut.  
  
“Wait!” Ahsoka cries. “Do you… want to… think… with me…?”  
  
Ahsoka winces. _ Smooth, Ahsoka. _ She reaches up and fidgets with a lek, anxiously tossing it over her shoulder.  
  
Then Barriss laughs, and the sound of it makes Ahsoka’s heart flip in her chest.  
  
“Sure,” she replies, and her half-smile slowly becomes whole.  
  
It’s a little late to be watching the binary sunset. The suns have already sunk below the horizon. But they sit there, above the steps to Obi-Wan’s hab, and watch the sky change color.  
  
“Ahsoka?” Barriss murmurs, plaintive.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“...Thank you.”  
  
Twilight washes over them. Red becomes sandy beige becomes pale gray and midnight blue. A chilly breeze makes them pull their cloaks tighter around their shoulders, and move just a little bit closer on the baked sand. They should go inside soon, but neither are eager to leave.  
  
If they wait a while longer, the stars will come out.  
  
~*~  
  
Time passes. The days become weeks. The weeks become months. Ahsoka’s work takes her across the galaxy, and everywhere she goes, Barriss follows in her shadow.   
  
She doesn't offer much in the way of suggestions when it comes to the Alliance and its business, but she never complains either. Ahsoka doesn't think she'll ever approve of what remains of the Republic, even now, but the lesser of two evils and all that.   
  
One night, Barriss slides into the copilot's seat next to Ahsoka.   
  
"What?" Ahsoka asks, the corner of her mouth ticking up.   
  
Barriss passes her a handful of jerky with a shadow of a smile. "Even rebellion leaders need to eat."   
  
Ahsoka makes a show of looking around. “Rebellion leader? Where?”   
  
The shadow stretches into a full smile, Barriss’ eyes curving sweetly. Ahsoka rewards herself with a bite of jerky that turns into a curse. Force. Old synthleather would probably taste better than this.   
  
“Y’know,” Ahsoka says, “I’m kind of tired of shipboard food.”   
  
Barriss holds up a protein bar. A chunk flakes from the tip and falls onto the console. “You don’t find this appetizing?”   
  
“I think it’s delicious, actually. You know what would make it better, though?” When Barriss raises her brows expectantly, Ahsoka slaps a button and brings up the navicomputer. “If it didn’t feel like biting into an old sock.”   
  
Barriss laughs but doesn’t disagree. And just like that, they find themselves on one of the few planets in the Midrim lucky enough to have minimal Empire and Rebellion presence-- though, Ahsoka thinks with some regret, it won’t be like that for long.  
  
The cantina crowd is a little different than the kind Ahsoka and Barriss usually associate with. They look like they might know what a sonic shower is, for one thing, and it does wonders for the cantina’s ambiance.   
  
They find a little booth a ways away from the bar, with a view of the door. Barriss pays.  
  
“You know,” Ahsoka says. “I’m all for chivalry, I really am--”  
  
“Yes, Ahsoka, I know how much you love chivalry.”  
  
“--But technically, it doesn’t matter who pays. Your money is my money too.”   
  
Barriss raises a brow. “I beg to differ. These are my credits, thank you very much.” She takes a sip of her water. “Don’t be a leech.”   
  
“I see! My apologies, Miss Offee, and thanks for paying. Very gracious of you.”   
  
“You’re welcome. I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding, _ Lady _ Tano.”   
  
Barriss smiles softly over the rim of her glass, and something in Ahsoka cracks like an egg--a breaking, a reforming, something shattering within her to let warmth fill the hollow of Ahsoka's chest. She hadn't known how much she needed Barriss to be happy-- truly happy, safe and warm and content at last-- until she saw it for herself.   
  
It's exhilarating. Like leaving a dogfight without a single singe on her fighter's wings. Like being at the peak of a Force jump, caught between momentum and the inevitable fall.   
  
Ahsoka grins back and finds that she's proud. Proud of Barriss and, less altruistically, proud of herself for putting that smile on Barriss' pretty face. She thinks she understands now why people in love make such spectacles of themselves.   
  
Dinner together becomes routine. Soon after that, so does saying good night. Barriss drapes her cloak and hood over the copilot’s chair next to Ahsoka’s, and they go to bed. They lay in their cots with a space between them narrow enough for Ahsoka to reach across and touch Barriss if she wanted to, and they talk. Just talk: about the Temple, about their losses, but more often than not, about nothing of consequence at all.   
  
“--and that’s the story of my first mission with Cassian. I didn’t know it was him until he told me a few weeks ago, actually, but I’m never letting him live it down.”   
  
“Memorable,” Barriss offers from beneath her cocoon of blankets. Her blue, blue eyes crinkle with a smile Ahsoka can’t see but feels as intimately as if it were pressed against her fingertips. “He seems very…”  
  
“A lot, I know.” Ahsoka stretches and tucks her hands beneath her head before they can get any ideas. Barriss has never been tactile. Or at least, she’s never been tactile with _ most _ people. “But he’s a good man. Even if he can get a little… intense.”  
  
“The last time you left me alone with him, we stared at each other for three standard minutes and forty-five seconds until he asked me what the weirdest place I’ve ever had to sneak into was.”   
  
“Huh.”   
  
“I’m led to the impression that he thinks I’m your personal spy.”   
  
“Well, you’ve really embraced the femme fatale look these last few years.”  
  
Barriss laughs. Ahsoka has to appreciate past-Ahsoka’s foresight. Her hands might have migrated and tried to tuck a curl behind Barriss’ ear if she hadn’t been lying on them. “Something tells me you don’t dislike it at all, though.”  
  
“I like it plenty. You make shadowsilk look _ good _ , Barriss. You look like someone who could kill a man with her bare hands and have him die smiling.”  
  
“Just the men, Ahsoka?” Barriss catches her eyes. “Or have you been putting a lot of thought into what I can do with my hands?”   
  
_ Kriff. _   
  
Ahsoka’s face turns the color of sunset. Watching Ahsoka sputter with the distinct air of someone who’s accomplished exactly what they set out to do, Barriss turns over and sings, “Sleep well!”, not bothering to hide her huge, self-satisfied grin and blushing green cheeks.  
  
~*~  
  
“Oh, come on!” Cassian pleads. He’s marching in step with Ahsoka through an Alliance outpost’s winding corridors, his rifle slung over his shoulder. “How often are we _ all _ on base at the same time? I already asked the Doc, and she’s on board. Two more, and we’ll have a real party! What do you say?”  
  
“Sorry, Cassian,” Ahsoka shrugs with a smile. “I don’t really drink.”  
  
“Do you _ eat _ ?” Cassian counters. “I’ll cook for you. That’s a promise. You must be sick to death of shipboard food, and I bet you’ve never had real cumin in your life. Come on, Tano. You know the instant I set foot off of this base I’m just as much of a workaholic as you are, so take it from me. Stop working for just one night. Take a break, and have some fun.”  
  
Ahsoka pauses in the hangar doorway, and lets Cassian keep walking. She grabs the back of his collar and he yelps, stopped in his tracks.  
  
“Haven’t you been having enough fun?” Ahsoka teases. She pulls down Cassian’s collar, exposing several dark bruises around his throat. “She was into choking, I see.”  
  
Cassian wriggles out of Ahsoka’s grasp and wags a finger in her face. “You’re funny, Tano. That’s why I like you. I can tell you right now there’s no shortage of women out there for me. They love the accent. But no, that’s not how I got this.”  
  
Cassian clicks a button on his comm, and his V-wing’s boarding hatch pops open with a hiss. A machine comes striding down the ramp: the bulky, matte-black chassis of an Imperial KX-series security droid. Its optics flicker curiously in Ahsoka’s direction.  
  
“This is K-2SO,” Cassian announces proudly. “I stole him from an Imperial outpost on Wecacoe and reprogrammed him. He’s the one who did the choking.”  
  
“Was that before or after the reprogramming?”  
  
K-2 steps forward. He looks Ahsoka up and down, flicks his optics, before turning to Cassian.  
  
“You are smaller than her,” he states, matter-of-fact. “Does that make you her subordinate?”  
  
“I work under her, yes, but that’s… not… why,” Cassian says, puzzled. He waves the thought away. “Never mind. K-2, this is Ahsoka Tano. I’m trying to convince her to take some time off and have some fun.”  
  
“I was not programmed with a concept of ‘fun’,” K-2 says flatly.  
  
“Alright, alright!” Ahsoka laughs. “Tell you what: I’ll think about it. Just let me ask Barriss first, and I’ll let you know, okay? I gotta go.”  
  
“You’d better!” Cassian calls, as Ahsoka retreats across the hangar. “I’m bringing the drinks, and I don’t want my only competition to be a droid!”  
  
Cassian grins, waving Ahsoka off. Beside him, K-2 merely glances at him and shrugs his metallic shoulders.  
  
“...It’s only because you know I’ll win.”  
  
Ahsoka’s ship is waiting all the way at the end of the hangar-- the last one back, the first one to leave. Ahsoka squints, and can see glints of warm gold and cool, midnight-blue. Kaeden and Barriss, as different as night and day. She can sense them, too, their fondness bleeding through the Force and filling her with warmth. She can sense someone else, too, rushing up to her from behind-- and she has to fight the instinctive urge to whirl around and punch them in the face.  
  
“Lady Tano,” the Rebel courier pants. “Have you seen Dr. Larte?”  
  
“She’s right over there,” Ahsoka points, “but she looks busy right now. Is it an emergency?”  
  
“No, no, just another batch of new recruits ready for their medical exams,” the courier explains. He squints, curious. “...That woman with her. I keep seeing her around, but we don’t have her on file. Your bodyguard, ma’am?”  
  
Ahsoka smiles, unbidden.  
  
“My friend.”  
  
~*~  
  
“...and then he says to her, ‘What are you going to do, Jedi? Shoot me?’ And Ahsoka growls at him, ‘I’m not a Jedi. And neither is she.’”  
  
“Oh, man,” Kaeden leans forward, enraptured. “And then what happened?”  
  
“What do you think? I shot him.”  
  
“I suppose he should have seen that coming,” Kaeden says with a wince. After a moment, she giggles, her gaze flicking up towards Barriss. “Then again, Ahsoka _ did _ warn him. She’s an amazing woman, isn’t she?”  
  
“Yes,” Barriss nods. “She really is.”  
  
“Listen, Barriss…” A shadow flickers across Kaeden’s face, and she hesitates, wary. She steeples her fingers over her mouth, and takes a deep breath. Eventually, she huffs out a sigh.  
  
“Alright, let me just put it out there,” Kaeden says, resolute. “Barriss. Ahsoka and I, we used to… date.”  
  
Barriss blinks. “...Oh.”  
  
“We met on Raada, maybe nine years ago. It’s… kind of a long story,” Kaeden mutters, sheepishly scratching the back of her head. “We stayed in touch while I was still in med-acad. Rushed through the coursework, top of my class. Finally, I got my license, and I found my way here, to Senator Organa’s cell. I still remember the first time I saw her, in the flesh, after so long. I’ll never forget how it felt, in that moment. Like falling in love all over again. Is that strange?”  
  
_ Buried beneath a thousand tons of rubble. The glint of blue eyes illuminated by a sparking commlink. Two hands, linked in the dark. _  
  
“No,” Barriss shakes her head, smiling. “You never forget your first time.”  
  
“It was… wonderful,” Kaeden sighs, wistful. “For a while, it was like something out of the holovids, you know? Just the two of us against the world. But, if I’m being honest, it was more like Ahsoka against the world, and me, waiting for her to get home.”  
  
Kaeden sighs again, mournful. “We tried to make the whole long-distance thing work, you know. But for me, it’s hard enough knowing the Alliance has got my sister halfway across the system, decoding Imperial comm codes at a listening post somewhere. But knowing they’re sending my girlfriend right into the thick of it? That was just…”  
  
Kaeden shakes her head. “...Anyway. The point is, Ahsoka and I were together, and now we’re not, and I thought you should know. We’re still good friends, obviously, and if I could do it without it stressing me out even more every second she’s offworld, I’d ask her out again in a heartbeat. But I guess what I’m saying is, don’t let that stop you. At the end of the day, I just want Ahsoka to be happy. And anybody with eyes can see you make her _ really _ happy.”  
  
A nostalgic smile flicks across Kaeden’s lips. She glances up to see Barriss staring at her, wringing her hands, her face tinged a rather darker shade of green. As soon as their eyes meet, Barriss lets out a scandalized squeak and snatches her eyes away.  
  
“I… I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Barriss mutters.  
  
Kaeden claps a hand on her shoulder with a laugh. “Oh, honey, you’re one of _ those _ …”  
  
“Are you two playing nice?” Ahsoka chides, a playful smile on her face.  
  
“Maybe,” Kaeden winks. She sees the messenger flagging her down, and flashes Barriss an apologetic smile. “Duty calls. Take care of her, okay? And good luck.”  
  
Barriss flushes an even deeper green as Kaeden scurries off. Ahsoka draws close-- far closer than Barriss is prepared to deal with at this very moment, thank you very much, and casually leans an elbow on Barriss’ shoulder.  
  
“What was that about?” Ahsoka teases. “Thinking of finally joining the Rebellion, making it official?”  
  
Barriss huffs, swatting Ahsoka’s elbow off her shoulder. She takes a moment to straighten her gown, willing the extra color from her face.  
  
“We’ve been over this, Ahsoka,” Barriss says firmly. “I’m not here for the Rebellion.”  
  
Then, softly, subtly, as if she’s only realized it herself: “...I’m here for you.”  
  
Ahsoka’s smile is warm and _ far _ too smug. Barriss shoves her in the arm.  
  
A comm chirps. Kaeden hurries back, holding up a flashing comm.  
  
“‘Soka, before I go, urgent communique from Cassian,” she points.  
  
Across the hangar, Cassian is waving frantically. He mouths two phrases across the hangar: ‘TONIGHT’ and ‘CALL ME’.  
  
Ahsoka rolls her eyes.  
  
“Well, what do you say, Barriss?” Ahsoka asks dryly. “Care to spend a night among the people?”  
  
Barriss glances away, suddenly shy.  
  
She’d almost forgotten what it was like to have friends.  
  
“Well…” Barriss murmurs, “I suppose we could both use one night off.”  
  
~*~  
  
Midnight, planetary time. The hatch seals shut with a hiss, and Ahsoka and Barriss stagger into the shuttle, exhausted to the bone.  
  
“Do you want to take the ‘fresher first?” Barriss murmurs, weary.  
  
Ahsoka mumbles a non-response. She steps into the cramped little alcove that serves as the shuttle’s kitchen/study/lounge, and unceremoniously flops face-first onto the couch. With a pained groan, she pushes off the couch so she’s at least sitting properly, and sinks down, draping an arm over her eyes.  
  
Ahsoka groans. You’d think managing Senator Organa’s intelligence division would be all paperwork and tedious holocalls, but somehow, being part of the Fulcrum Network involved a lot more running firefights and rooftop escapes than your average office job. Now she’s sprawled on a couch, her muscles are on fire…  
  
...and she’s still alive, somehow, so she’ll call that a win.  
  
The hard contours of her bracer are starting to leave marks on her forehead. Ahsoka tugs off her gauntlets and tosses them aside, reaching down and unlacing her boots. They hit the deck below with a thud. Every inch of her is aching. Even lifting her arms becomes a chore.  
  
She swears she only closes her eyes for a second. But when she blinks herself awake, she feels Barriss’ slender arms curled around her neck from behind, and Barriss resting on top of her head, her chin fitting perfectly in the slope between her montrals.  
  
“Hey,” Ahsoka murmurs sleepily.  
  
“Hey,” Barriss says, so tenderly it makes Ahsoka’s heart ache.  
  
“We’re moving.”  
  
“Mm. I jumped us out of the system and set the course for our next op. We’re in hyperspace now. It occurred to me that we shouldn’t stay planetside if Crimson Dawn comes looking for their missing hit squad.”  
  
“Makes sense,” Ahsoka mutters.  
  
“I have a question,” Barriss offers. “It might be a silly one.”  
  
“Go for it,” Ahsoka shrugs.  
  
“How do you put on tops with such tight collars?” Barriss wonders earnestly. “Don’t your montrals and lekku get in the way?”  
  
“They open from the front,” Ahsoka says dryly. She undoes the buttons on her tunic to demonstrate, and lets it fall open, exposing her undershirt and her toned core beneath.  
  
“I see,” Barriss says, with an odd lilt to her voice. “Move over.”  
  
Ahsoka makes a valiant effort to lift her legs, and then sinks back in her seat, her eyes closed.  
  
“Mm. Nope. Too tired to move.”  
  
She feels Barriss pull away for a moment. A moment later, after nimbly picking her way across Ahsoka’s boots and gear haphazardly scattered across the deck, Ahsoka feels the warm weight of Barriss settling down on her lap, curled up like a cat.  
  
Ahsoka smiles. It’s become a habit, by now. “What are you--”  
  
“I _ told _ you to make room,” Barriss chides. “Do you want me to move?”  
  
“...No,” Ahsoka says. “This is nice.”  
  
Ahsoka curls an arm around Barriss’ waist, and Barriss curls into her, settling in like she was always meant to be there. She fits snugly against Ahsoka’s shoulder. Barriss isn’t wearing her hood and her hair brushes up against Ahsoka’s right lek. The strange, alien sensation sends a pleasant shiver down Ahsoka’s spine.  
  
Barriss gently takes Ahsoka’s hand. There was a time when such a simple touch would have made them both flinch, but now they lace their fingers together without any fuss.  
  
“I wanted to thank you,” Barriss murmurs. “You’ve been working so hard. I know, when we first started out, I gave you a hard time about working for the Alliance. A less patient woman would have kicked me out months ago, so… thank you, for letting me stay.”  
  
“Hey, it’s not like I did it for free,” Ahsoka says. “You saved my life on Coruscant.”  
  
“Ten years ago, I almost got you _ killed _ on Coruscant.”  
  
“Well, _ yeah _ , but, you know…”  
  
Ahsoka shrugs. She squeezes Barriss’ hand in hers, taking the time to find the right words.  
  
“...After the fall of the Republic, I spent some time in the Outer Rim, just trying to lay low,” Ahsoka murmurs. “I tried to blend in. I got a job-- a real job, not one where I’d need a lightsaber. That’s when I first met Kaeden, actually. Did I tell you that story? I tried making it as a mechanic. Tried to just… keep my head down.”  
  
Ahsoka sighs, and shakes her head.  
  
“...It’s kind of a long story, but the point is, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay out of it, because the Empire wasn’t going to leave things alone. I wound up linking up with Senator Organa’s network, doing the spy thing. I spent a long time, just… on my own. I needed something to keep me going. I needed something to fight for. The Force, the Republic, the Rebellion… they were all great _ ideas _ , but they were too big, too vague for me to really _ care _ about. And then, just when it was starting to look like the Empire had finally caught me for good… you found me. And just like that, my reason to fight... had a face.”  
  
“Ahsoka…”  
  
“Although my reason to fight should probably get her tattoos re-done,” Ahsoka teases, flicking Barriss on the nose.  
  
Barriss swats her away, giggling. “Alright, well. I’m glad I’m here, Ahsoka. I’m glad I can be such a good...”  
  
“Partner?” Ahsoka grins.  
  
“Friend, maybe?” Barriss offers.  
  
“Maybe more than that…” Ahsoka walks her fingers up Barriss’ arm, settling them on her shoulder. She eases Barriss forward, her breath catching in her throat, until their foreheads touch and their eyes meet.  
  
“Ahsoka,” Barriss whispers, and for one, frail moment, all her defenses, all her guile and her masks of sharpness and cynicism melt away. For a moment, she looks the smallest she’s ever been-- a frightened, lonely woman, lost and adrift in the vast darkness of her own thoughts.  
  
“Ahsoka,” she chokes out again, her words like ghosts against Ahsoka’s lips. “We’ve… we’ve both lost so much. I just… I need to know that there’s someone I can trust with… everything. My life, my body… my heart. And I-- Ahsoka, I want it to be you.”  
  
“I know,” Ahsoka breathes. She pulls Barriss close, one strong arm around her waist, the other reaching up to delicately cup her cheek. “May I kiss you?”  
  
Barriss is so emotional she can scarcely speak. She nods, and Ahsoka smooths her knuckles against Barriss’ jaw, tips her chin up--  
  
Barriss shudders and pulls back, just for a moment.  
  
“Wait. Wait,” she ekes out. She searches Ahsoka’s eyes, rasping out a haggard plea. “Just… please, Ahsoka. Please tell me you won’t leave me. If I commit to something wholeheartedly and lose it again, it will ruin me. I _ need _ you, Ahsoka.”  
  
“You have me,” Ahsoka whispers, like a prayer. “Now, and always.”  
  
Ahsoka barely gets the words out before Barriss darts forward and captures her lips.  
  
Barriss’ kiss is a soft, shy, subtle thing, like the frail, breathless stillness in the moments before dawn. Ahsoka deepens the kiss, guiding Barriss with a gentle but firm hand against her jaw, reaching up and carding her fingers through Barriss’ choppy brown hair. Ahsoka holds her close, a strong arm curled protectively around her waist. Ahsoka kisses with confidence, steady and stable, and Barriss follows each of her kisses with a softer, gentler kiss, like an echo, or a promise.  
  
Barriss smooths her fingertips down the length of Ahsoka’s lekku, sending an electrical thrill down her spine. She pulls open the front of Ahsoka’s tunic, lets it slip down her shoulder. Ahsoka unclasps a cloak pin, follows the heavy fabric as it slides down Barriss’ toned back and past her hips.  
  
Wandering fingers reach out like ribbons of violet and gold across the pre-dawn sky. Fabric parts like twin suns chasing away clouds. And when the suns come out, blazing bright even after all this time, the whole world just melts away into heat, and love, and light.  
  
~*~  
  
“Are you two _ girlfriends _ ?”  
  
“Luke!” Owen snaps. He glances up at his two newest guests. “I’m so sorry, miss. Luke, that’s not polite. That’s none of your business.”  
  
“Sorry,” the boy says, bashful.  
  
“Honestly, just because it’s his birthday…” Beru chides.  
  
“It’s quite alright,” Barriss says gently, sharing a look with Ahsoka. “How old are you turning, Luke?”  
  
“I’m turning _ eleven _ ,” Luke proudly declares. “That means in only two more years, Uncle Owen’s gonna let me drive the landspeeder. Maybe even the skyhopper!”  
  
“Now, now, Luke, I never said _ that _ …” Owen chuckles.  
  
“Do you like engines?” Luke asks, bright-eyed.  
  
“We _ love _ engines,” Ahsoka grins.  
  
“Oh, great! Then just wait ‘til you see this!”  
  
Luke’s mop of dirty blond hair practically bounces as he runs out the back door, and the girls follow him, bemused. In the back lot of the Lars family homestead, Luke proudly shows off his latest project: a landspeeder, or most of one, sitting disassembled on a tarp in the sand, made almost entirely out of cheap, worn, secondhand parts.  
  
Obi-Wan lingers nearby, watching with a smile as Luke excitedly babbles about power converters, Ahsoka follows along, eager, and Barriss tries her best to pretend she knows what he’s talking about-- all the while ignoring the guarded looks Luke’s aunt and uncle keep throwing his way.  
  
After his argument with Barriss months ago, it’s easy for him to understand why. A moisture farmer, maybe even a mechanic, had a future in this galaxy. If Obi-Wan trained Luke as a Jedi under this regime, he’d just be sending him to his death. Better to let him enjoy his youth. At least, while he still could.  
  
Ahsoka catches his eye and excuses herself, joining him by the fence. There’s a certain look in her eyes-- a certain pity for a parent left out of the festivities-- that, for the first time since his exile, makes Obi-Wan truly feel old.  
  
“He’s a good kid,” Ahsoka muses, with a lopsided grin. “Really knows his way around ships.”  
  
“Just like his father,” Obi-Wan says quietly.  
  
Ahsoka nods, somber. “...What’s going to happen when we see him again?”  
  
Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Yes, _ ‘when’ _ , not ‘if’,” Ahsoka presses. “He’s a Sith Lord, not an idiot, and he has the resources of an entire Empire at his disposal. We can only hide as long as he lets us.”  
  
Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, and lets it out slow.  
  
“...Nothing is certain,” Obi-Wan muses quietly. “We failed him, Ahsoka. We loved him, and we failed him. I hid. You ran. We cannot spend all our days scurrying around like rats. In time, we will both have to face our failures. I have seen that time coming. I have seen the place where our paths diverge. The time will come where you will go where I cannot follow.”  
  
“Well, sure, but only because you won’t get on my ship and off of this rock,” Ahsoka jokes, but Obi-Wan doesn’t laugh. He turns to her, wistful, his eyes a melancholy gray.  
  
“You are the future, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan says, with absolute conviction. “You will grow beyond anything I, or any Jedi, can teach you. You will run towards something, rather than just running away. And you will see the light waiting at the end of these dark days.”  
  
The gravity of his words gives her pause. After a long moment, Ahsoka smiles, and nudges Obi-Wan with her elbow.  
  
“The Force told you all that, huh?”  
  
Obi-Wan chuckles. “No. But I have faith.”  
  
Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and sighs, content. He meets Ahsoka’s eyes, a wry smile pulling at his lips. “I imagine Anakin was a more practical-minded teacher, yes? You deserve to hear a prophecy from a mysterious old Jedi, at least once in your life.”  
  
“You’re _ not _ that old,” Ahsoka insists.  
  
Obi-Wan smiles. “Enough about me. Today is for you.”  
  
“Is it? It’s not _ my _ birthday,” Ahsoka teases.  
  
Across the yard, Barriss shrieks in surprise as a misfiring repulsor core blows her hood down and sends her cloak billowing. Ahsoka snorts out a laugh, and Barriss turns to her, indignant. By the time Ahsoka turns back to Obi-Wan, she’s grinning from ear to ear.  
  
“I’m happy for you,” he says gently.  
  
“Thanks,” Ahsoka murmurs, suddenly shy. “I wasn’t sure you would be.”  
  
“What?” Obi-Wan gasps, affronted. “What in the world would make you think that?”  
  
“Um? Jedi?” Ahsoka raises a hand, gesturing vaguely. “I don’t know! Look what happened the _ last _ time one of your students fell in love.”  
  
“Anakin’s love changed the galaxy,” Obi-Wan replies. “Maybe someday, you, too, can be a force for change. In fact, I’d say you’ve already begun.”  
  
Barriss crosses the yard to join them, her lithe form buffeted by Tattooine’s early morning winds. Her hood keeps blowing down. After awhile, she stops trying to keep it pulled down, letting the desert wind ruffle the choppy hair poking from her mantle.  
  
“Are you two talking about me?” Barriss teases. “Good things, I hope.”  
  
“We sure are,” Ahsoka grins. “Obi-Wan was just saying how good we look together.”  
  
Barriss hesitates, glancing between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. She quietly wrings her hands.  
  
“Oh, you… told him…?”  
  
Obi-Wan blinks, puzzled. “Was it… supposed to be a secret?”  
  
“Well, I suppose we’re not exactly subtle,” Barriss laughs. She clasps her hands formally in front of her, stiffly bowing her head. “...Thank you, Master Kenobi.”  
  
Obi-Wan reaches out, urging her upright. “Please don’t. We aren’t Jedi anymore.”  
  
“But Master--” Barriss catches herself, biting her lip. “...Obi-Wan. If we aren’t Jedi, then what are we?”  
  
“Anything we want to be,” Obi-Wan smiles. “A new beginning.”  
  
A shout across the yard. Luke’s Aunt Beru, calling from within the farmstead.  
  
“Luke! Say goodbye to our guests! You’ve got chores to do!”  
  
Luke bolts upright from the guts of his disassembled landspeeder, nearly bashing his head on the raised hood. He gives the trio an enthusiastic wave, shouting for them to visit again soon. Ahsoka and Barriss wave back, smiling bright.  
  
“Love is an act of faith, and in these trying times, I have faith that you will find a way forward,” Obi-Wan intones. He reaches up, taking Ahsoka and Barriss’ shoulders with a squeeze.  
  
“Trust in the Force,” Obi-Wan says, in benediction. “And if you can’t trust the Force, trust in each other.”  
  
Ahsoka and Barriss bow their heads and accept Obi-Wan’s blessing. Between them, their hands meet, fingers intertwined. They cut a striking figure-- two women against the world.  
  
Above them, Tattooine’s twin suns rise into the sky, one a little shorter than the other. Beyond the sky, the long dark is waiting. But they won’t face it alone.  
  
~*~


End file.
